SOURCE: "The Secret of Wide Sargasso Sea," in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, Spring, 1990, pp. 185-97.

In the following essay, Curtis examines the use of paradoxical imagery and metaphor to portray Antoinette's death and transformation in Wide Sargasso Sea.

In "Making Bricks Without Straw," Jean Rhys remembers a typical question-and-answer game she played with many journalists who interviewed her. Before long, the game gently pushed her into her "predestined role, the role of victim." This means, says Rhys, that "I have never had any good times, never laughed, never got my own back, never dared, never worn pretty clothes, never been happy, never known wild hopes or wilder despairs…. Wailing, I have gone from tyrant to tyrant; each letdown worse than the last. All this, of course, leads straight to Women's Lib." As the game went on, Rhys shocked the interviewer when she said that...